The surface (or the topcoat) for fuser members in oil-less fusing requires ultra low surface energy to release the substrate. An improved topcoat material oil-less fusing is high-temperature tolerant thermoplastic, such as, FEP, PFA or PTFE, described in U.S. Ser. Nos. 11/472,918, 11/472,771, 11/472,888 and 11/472,919.
However, during fuser printing performance tests paper edges, particularly of thick paper, can occasionally leave wear marks on the topcoat of the fuser surface. These paper edge marks can show up as gloss-variation artifact when subsequent prints are made on a wider paper of a full page image. Moreover, for printing special images, particularly one with in-track stripes of area of no toners, foreign materials from the paper are seen to periodically accumulate on the surface of the topcoat due to the absence of toners, leading to artifact of gloss variation band artifact when printing a different image next, such as a full page image. Typically, when such image defects occur, the fuser member or members are replaced.
The present invention provides an apparatus for refurbishing in-situ the fuser member, which applied in an internally heated fusing system, i.e., no apparatus external to the fuser member that can provide the function of the invention filed herein.